5 things I’d like to see in Opera
Sunday, August 12, 2007 6:12:57 PM
I was tagged by AyushJ in the game originally started by Daniel Goldman. I'm not going to tag anyone else because I'm pretty sure the game is thoroughly over.
Here are the 5 things I'd like to see in Opera:
EDIT: I'd also like incremental updates with the ability to update to weeklies.
Here are the 5 things I'd like to see in Opera:
- Attention for advanced users
- More transparent development process
- Extension API
- More extensive UI
- Better Documentation
-
Attention for advanced users
Many features and a lot of development time seems to go into making novices happy and comfortable. All of the additional clients (torrents, mail, rss, irc) lack advanced functionality. It is common knowledge that they are there just for light usage. This trickles over into other areas.
- Web Developer tools: A firebug killer
- Better error console filtering: each category (javascript, css, xslt, svg, etc.) should function like a checkbox. So I can limit the console to only showing xslt, svg, and javascript if I so desire.
- Improved source viewer: line numbering, ability to jump to lines, syntax highlighting
- Opera sponsored/hosted Userjs repository: Userjs was a part of Opera way before widgets, but widgets are glorified like they are the coolest things since sliced bread. -
More transparent development process
- bug tracking system: The bug tracking system is sometimes referred to as a black hole. You can literally report a bug and never know if and when it's fixed or otherwise closed. That is not remotely user/community-friendly. It makes the whole bug reporting process leave a sour taste in my mouth. I've actually considered applying to work for Opera since Quality Assurance is my profession. Although I would possibly have access to the data I wanted, the problem would not be fixed. Opera tries to portray the image that its very community centric but still I can't even get an email when my bug is closed, marked as invalid, or fixed. That seems rather unfair. People are putting their time and effort into finding and reporting bugs and some of us go the extra steps of making test cases and what do we get in return? A virtual kick in the teeth. [Side note: Instead of saying I 'filed a bug', I say I cast a stone into Opera and the BTS of Secrets TM]
- more extensive change logs: As it has been said time and time again, the change logs (both for weeklies and official releases) only contain a small percentage of the changes that actually take place. It has been said a few times that not very many people are interested in this and would not read it. That is so very true. I'd like to think that I and my nerd kind are still important even though we are not large in numbers.
- 'Feature Request' added as an option in the bug report wizard: under 'What kind of problem is this?'. The current option 'Other Problems' portrays the message that if its not a 'Spec Violation', 'Security Issue', or 'Crashes Opera', then it should be thrown in the bucket with all the other bugs. EDIT: Having the feature requests reported to an external source sets a precedent of low priority and inferiority. "Don't clutter our important issues with your petty requests". I have used mantis, jira, bugzilla, trac, bountysource, and whatever sourceforge uses but never before have I seen feature requests/improvements reported outside of the bts. I'm aware it is named a bug tracking system but all of the creators of the software included 'feature requests' as an option on purpose and for a good reason. I'm sure internally there is an option in the bts for feature requests. I know this would create a big influx of traffic but unless Opera is struggling to make ends meet they could increase QA staff or someone just to weed out dupes, etc. -
Extension API
I don't know what to say here. This is a hot button. People always cry about performance loss and security issues. I have faith that Opera devs can development an extension api that outperforms mozilla's and is more secure. Userjs can steal passwords and log keys just like an extension would but I've not seen anyone campaigning to remove userjs from Opera. Perhaps, like many other features, Opera could make it hidden unless you take advantage of it (mail, bit torrent, widgets (sort of)). Firefox extension api keeps it ahead of the pack in many aspects. Opera came out with a brand new feature, Speed Dial. A week or 2 later, firefox has a more customizable version of Speed Dial. Many Opera users are still requesting more customization options for Speed Dial still today. The playing field is not level. Firefox and extensions are in the lead. Besides MDI and performance... Anything Opera can do, Firefox can do (better?). Many Opera-originated features have been copied or emulated by Firefox extensions. The Top 150 Popular Firefox Extensions and Opera is a good example. You'll notice Opera is trying to set itself equal to the extensions of Firefox. (The less than 100 desktop team members compared to the work hundreds (thousands?) of extension developers... not just these extensions). You'll notice there is not a list in reverse where Firefox is trying to make itself equal to some functionality in Opera (not to my knowledge at least... feel free to correct me). Virtually anything Firefox wants from Opera can be copied, emulated, or improved on with an extension. -
More extensive User Interface
There are too many things that require manually editing .ini files. In the forums, it is not uncommon for noobs and novices to be told to edit xyz.ini to change some feature or setting. Opera:config is a good start but it still has a way to go. -
Better Documentation
I don't understand why it is necessary for users to reverse engineer Opera's capabilities to get it documented. Does Opera have a documentation team? Have they considered hiring one? I've been using Opera for quite some time but Google, myself, and various staff members still don't know if and how Remote Script Debugger works. Is it enabled and lying dormant? Did it ever work? Does it require a special server? protocol? (These are not rhetorical questions btw.)
EDIT: I'd also like incremental updates with the ability to update to weeklies.













AyushAyushJ # Tuesday, August 14, 2007 7:14:35 AM
opera.actions['Show popup menu']('Browser Files menu') etc.gt=opera.toolbars.add([I]Placement[/I],[I]Style[/I],[I]Wrapping[/I]); x=opera.toolbars[gt].addItem('Action','param1','param2','text','icon'); opera.toolbars[gt].editItem(x,'action', ...); opera.toolbars['Status'].addItem(...)Even FF extensions are actually zipped js files...
MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage # Tuesday, August 14, 2007 1:48:52 PM
Originally posted by AyushJ:
How would you use that to restructure the Error console? Add a new toolbar? Change the cycling order of tabs? Make dialog boxes for settings? Add complete new fields to toolbars? Debug javascript? Log network requests, headers, and repsonses?Its actually a combination of XUL and JS. XUL being the more useful part of it.
AyushAyushJ # Tuesday, August 14, 2007 4:05:25 PM
Khaled KhalilKhaled-Khalil # Friday, March 7, 2008 12:51:58 PM
my top 10 would be definately a compromization of yours and Claudio's.
Doliprane'Doliprane # Sunday, June 1, 2008 9:26:49 PM
I like your wishes
MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage # Monday, June 2, 2008 1:35:03 PM
TomekSadowy # Thursday, June 19, 2008 5:28:16 PM
Miladin MiladinoskiEagleMKD # Wednesday, October 1, 2008 8:24:43 PM
Martin RauscherHades32 # Monday, April 20, 2009 8:56:26 PM
But as you already wrote above, the biggest feature one needs for is something like XUL. So I guess we have to wait unitl Opera 10.5/11 until the whole UI is based on Vega...
AbandonShip?masterofopera # Tuesday, April 21, 2009 6:57:27 PM
+1 for every of the 5 things!
I whish the same!
Edit:
and a grafic skin-editor would be good
for not so expirienced people.
lucideer # Monday, June 1, 2009 7:54:29 AM
Originally posted by fearphage:
Have you had a good look at Mozilla Jetpack? It seems to me to do exactly what AyushJ proposed there (a year and a half ago now
Btw, +1 on your #1 wish too.
MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage # Monday, June 1, 2009 12:33:57 PM
Originally posted by lucideer:
I sure have. The only thing that I have seen it do so far is add status field entries. It has yet to alter/replace native dialogs, add a toolbar or any of the other things on that list. It is just html, css, and js. That limits what it can do in terms of debugging javascript and logging raw http requests. A side note, Jetpack is similar to Chrome's extension api.Thanks for the support.
lucideer # Monday, June 1, 2009 3:23:52 PM
As per your examples, debugging and HTTP logging seems (if I'm not mistaken) to be in the works anyway with the Scope API, a HTML pseudo-dialogue can look as "native" as you like and serve an identical practical purpose, so I'd say this is already possible with Jetpack.
I'm disappointed that Jetpacks can't manipulate toolbars though (as you say), I thought this would've been a given.
Daniel HendrycksDanielHendrycks # Monday, August 31, 2009 3:06:19 AM
I'll make a blog post defending extensions when my blog is out of beta.
MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage # Wednesday, September 2, 2009 8:18:05 AM
Originally posted by lucideer:
I find it powerful and meaning full that 1 firefox extension, jetpack, can emulate Chrome's whole extension api and 1 firefox extension, greasemonkey, can emulate the closest thing Opera has to an extension API (userjs).lucideer # Wednesday, September 2, 2009 9:10:14 PM
Originally posted by fearphage:
This is exactly what I dislike about it. You can essentially build an entirely different app with Firefox's api it's so powerful (many have). All I want is to EXTEND the browser app, anything else is overkill and superfluity.
Firefox's api is and always will be the most powerful, but I don't want all that power at the expense of performance and stability (which as far as I've seen it INVARIABLY is). I want as much extensibility as I can get without those compromises, and you can't have your cake and eat it.
MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage # Thursday, September 3, 2009 11:45:52 AM
Originally posted by lucideer:
That is truly perplexing that you are afraid/against having "too much" power/control over software installed on your machine. Do you prefer to be spoon fed functionality when opera devs think it is useful/important? Are you into BDSM by chance? I genuinely cannot comprehend your aversion to control/power.Originally posted by lucideer:
Are you under the influence that opera employs shitty developers?lucideer # Thursday, September 3, 2009 7:15:45 PM
Seriously though, as much as I thoroughly believe that Opera devs WOULD do a better job of implementing a fast, efficient xul-like extensions framework, you cannot seriously tell me you believe it would be without compromise.
Any extra power comes at a compromise. I want as much power as I can get, with as little compromise. There's no aversion to power or control - only to compromise in other areas I currently enjoy.
Another point that you seem not to consider is the inconvenience of upgrades. The more 3rd party features you begin to RELY on in an app, the less continuity and stability you get in upgrades. Ideally as many of the features you RELY on should be core.
MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage # Thursday, September 3, 2009 10:56:45 PM
Originally posted by lucideer:
IE and chrome both have extensions and neither have anything to do with xul from what I've seen.Originally posted by lucideer:
The problem here is that I cannot rely on Opera devs to provide me with what I want and need. So this is not a viable option for me. I would like one feature request and then they can go back to ignoring/deprioritizing me as usual.Originally posted by lucideer:
You won't be using the powerful extensions anyways, right? So what do you care? I appreciate your concern for my well-being but that is something I'm more than prepared to live with. Also, just like firefox, perhaps we can make an extension to tell the other extensions to ignore version compatibility. Self-healing power!Daniel HendrycksDanielHendrycks # Friday, September 4, 2009 2:00:53 AM
Off-Topic (Google I/O browser discussion) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M9sNheYGIw
lucideer # Friday, September 4, 2009 7:53:35 PM
Originally posted by fearphage:
I have actually agreed in the past that I'd love to see a lighter extensibility system than XUL implemented in Opera - yet I remember you at the time saying that such a system would not be "powerful" enough. I could be wrong, my memory's not great at the best of times, but I don't think I am.
Originally posted by fearphage:
Again (and again and again) you are assuming the presence of an extensions framework would have NO adverse effect in itself. You are saying it could be implemented with NO compromise in areas such as performance. No matter how brilliantly talented Opera's devs are, I just cannot believe this is possible.
I want extensibility. I don't want an XUL equivalent.
MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage # Friday, September 11, 2009 6:56:22 AM
Originally posted by lucideer:
I don't recall saying this but the api needs the ability to change and manipulate the ui. This does not in anyway imply xul.Originally posted by lucideer:
Actually this is not a concern of mine. I deal with the effects of mail, unite, torrents, widgets and other things I don't use. So if the extension api affects some people, so be it. We'll call it even then. I know there will be compromise. I'm however willing to trade some performance for functionality, control, and power every single day of the week and twice on sundays.It seems like FUD drives most anti-extension debates but they add a web-server to a browser and that's just fine? Give me a break.
Daniel HendrycksDanielHendrycks # Sunday, December 6, 2009 11:02:52 PM
lucideer # Sunday, December 6, 2009 11:39:44 PM
Originally posted by DanielHendrycks:
I would guess it's mostly a case of the time it would take setting one up - it would be more complex than a typical open-source BTS as there would need to be a large private element. For example, Unite bugs would have been present in their internal BTS as early as over two years ago, these couldn't be public unless Opera radically changed the way they did things, and this kind of separation would take some extra administrative effort. It's very possible of course, and I really wish they'd do it soon, but I'm just saying it wouldn't be a simple case of making their current BTS public as is.
(That's just my guess, I could be completely wrong)
Øzikzakatak # Thursday, March 4, 2010 5:32:14 PM
MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage # Friday, March 5, 2010 5:56:49 AM
Originally posted by Daniel James Hendrycks:
The problem I'm finding with Opera is not the number of bugs but the type. They continually take 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. 8.5x had regressions that mad it to 9x. 9x had regressions that are in 10.10. 10.10 had regressions that have been carried into 10.50. 10.50's regressions will undoubtedly be carried into the next release. I wish this was a problem to opera's engineering crew but it seems to be the norm. Regressions should be the exception. I don't feel that is the case now. Features are nice and all but things working like they did in the build before are even better... Especially for web devs.Originally posted by lucideer:
The bug tracking system that Opera uses (jira) can easily handle the situation you are describing. I know this first hand. We use Jira where I work currently. Jira supports projects and each user or user group can be granted permissions to certain projects. So when you login, you'll see Dragonfly, Carakan, and Unite for instance but you won't see the other 500 projects that are going on simultaneously. Also, when you post comments, you have the option to determine which group of people can see your comments. So when the customer/end user goes in, they say "Man, no one has commented on this in months" when in actually there could be a thread of developers talking about this daily. It would require the devs and qa to be more careful in the BTS but it is completely possible and jira is prepared to handle exactly that. I originally thought that's why they switched to jira.lucideer # Friday, March 5, 2010 6:37:57 AM
While Opera's source is apparently very modular (so they tell us - apparently why it's so easy to port across platforms), there's no way there would not be immense cross-over and interdependencies between separate projects when they are all part of a single piece of software. The Unite projects would have a lot of Carakan dependencies, as would Dragonfly, all projects would have dependencies of some description on the Core code.
Also, since you're selecting which projects to make public - do you make the core project public? Most of the bug reports are probably related to it, but it would also probably directly reflect addition of any new features that are being added as non-public projects.
So the other option is selectively making each bug report and each comment on each bug report public/non-public. Which is also possible with JIRA afaik, but I wouldn't say it's exactly straightforward.
Originally posted by fearphage:
Exactly. As I said, I support this wish fully, I really wish they'd do just that - I was merely... trying to give it some context.
DayderDay # Wednesday, August 18, 2010 3:53:38 PM
Daniel HendrycksDanielHendrycks # Wednesday, August 18, 2010 7:33:34 PM
Originally posted by fearphage:
MyOpera team, please fix this!fearphage # Tuesday, August 24, 2010 6:11:36 PM
Originally posted by DanielHendrycks:
I don't understand your comment. Is it incomplete?Daniel HendrycksDanielHendrycks # Tuesday, August 24, 2010 11:41:05 PM
Originally posted by MyOpera team, please fix this!:
Whoops, I was talking about the "feature" Haavard has been talking about; most recent thoughts: http://twitter.com/DanielHendrycks/status/21754597130
From what I have gathered from comments in the last few months, I do think the thought of extensions is Opera has a shot for the next release, unlike other releases.
The "
Turin # Tuesday, August 31, 2010 11:41:38 PM
The source viewer still needs to be significantly improved and bugs report status is still hidden from users. I thought I had heard while back that Opera was considering extensions but either I heard wrong or the idea was delayed or something.
There most definitely need to be improvements to documentation. Mozilla does a much better job in this area.
Feature requests should be encouraged in the BTS but I do not think that is going to happen until the database is public in order to limit the number of duplicate requests.
The most worrisome tendency of Opera to me is the dropping of features without explanation until prompted on the forums or developer blogs. And, as you said, the sheer number of regressions that occur from version to version. Features are nice, but UI and specification regressions should not be occurring on a semi-regular basis.
Kai AnderßenKaiAnderssen # Friday, October 15, 2010 3:11:15 AM
Forget security - Opera = best security capabilities ?
Just copy the security leeks fromm other browsers! Next sptep will be copying the bugs.
Daniel HendrycksDanielHendrycks # Friday, October 15, 2010 7:34:03 PM
Originally posted by fearphage:
For the first time, you can remove an item from that list.
reiner UnsinnReinerUnsinn # Saturday, October 16, 2010 6:35:11 AM
Better visit http://extendopera.org/
Extensions? Only if 'safety first' is guaranteed.
ArturMithos # Monday, October 25, 2010 9:17:54 PM
Tiago Wakabayashiozoratsubasa # Monday, May 16, 2011 8:46:14 PM
AbandonShip?masterofopera # Wednesday, May 18, 2011 6:40:49 PM
*WebGL (already under construction
*Improved M$ Outlook- (& LiveMail- ) import, that works easy even when outlook & Windows Registry are defect (using Linux for example or other windows @ other hard-disk)
QuHno # Friday, January 27, 2012 9:22:28 AM
Point 1: OK, Dragonfly becomes better with every version, the normal source viewer is still a PITA and the Opera-sponsored UserJS repository is still nonexistent.
Point 2: I'd have to swear, so: No comment.
Point 3 of the list partially fulfilled, but the extensions can't rebuild the UI apart from a meager button and a popup and lack several capabilities to make them really useful.
Examples:
You can set block list items and remove them - but you can't look up, what is actually blocked.
You can't read the internal fonts list of installed system fonts or other, similar lists which would do no harm if they could be read from an extension.
You can't put files like images or CSS files or fonts in a special assets folder in the extension for *easy* access by injected scripts. Scope knows exactly where the injected script comes from, so there would be no real security risc with read only access to these for extensions.
Point 4 might be fulfilled in the future too (YAML could lead to that) if we get a full action list somewhere. Just because it is possible to rearrange the UI it doesn't mean, that we can do it without reverse engineering to get the commands needed - and, what is annoying too: There is no common place and no easy way to share those setups and modifications. Having to tell interested users in the forums that they have to edit INIs is error prone and not user friendly for novice users.
Brackets in button actions for better grouping and support for included base64 encoded PNG icons to make the Buttons as powerful and nice as they could be without the need to write ghastly workarounds or to edit skin files. btw: Why not make the whole UI drag- and dropable? Just move around every item (even in dialogs) according to the needs you have - plus a non-movable reset button
Point 5: Big parts of the documentation are outdated or wrong or not valic any more and the search function in dev.opera is pathetic. The middle part of documentation and tutorial chain is completely missing, there are just basic and full-Geek (but with missing things) documentation and tutorials. Full changelogs would be fine too, that would stop i.e. extensions developers from running into compatibility issues.
My personal point to add to the list above:
6) An encryption API for Mail, which is an old wish too, I think I saw it first 2001 in the opera newsgroups.
*) in Earth ages compared to Web ages a similar step would go from the first multi cell blobs to the humans of today...
Tiago Wakabayashiozoratsubasa # Tuesday, January 31, 2012 5:16:25 AM
- Opera Chat Improvement
- Opera Unite apps fixed
- Back the old addressbar view
- A social networking client
- The extension bar being movable and/or Extension Menu Button on Panel